Freedom Fighters

My friend Pierre Olivier Bastien ( a brilliant young man who is doing research into the incretins) has made a video for the Fraser institute competition. Pierre Olivier is a great defender of liberty himself! It stars two good friends of mine Ezra Levant and Peter Jaworski( and even me a little). Please go to YouTube and "like" and share this video

Afghan Mission

The bloc motion on condemning the continuation of the Afghan Mission was defeated. My compliments to iffy and the grits for doing the right thing.
I am a supporter of the work of the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee. I think this extension is the right thing to do. I am glad both HM Government and HM Loyal Opposition have not made this a partisan issue.
We must continue to help the people of Afghanistan as a monument to our brave soldiers who died defending freedom there. Abandoning Afghanistan was always a bad idea.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

By elections

I am sitting in Kerala, India following the federal byelections in Canada on twitter. It looks like Fantino has won by a narrow margin. we have kept the other Manitobe seat and the iffy grits have finally narrowly won a byelection. I continue to predict no federal election in the near future. Even the NDP are in no shape for a federal run right now. The grits are still broke and though they won one seat, they lost a seat they held for 22 years. Hardly a huge endorsement of iffy.

Success in cancun ...

for Climate Realism. There will lfty statements and a communique that will claim victory for the chicken littles, but thje chicken littles have lost. Nothing or less than nothing will happen at cancun. Nothing except a lot of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere by the many private jets carrying the chicken litles and their hoaxster friends.


Hand it to Mark Jaccard for keeping his chin up, and pressing on when he knows he faces little hope. The professor of environmental economics at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University -- who shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize given to scientists behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), along with Al Gore -- even went ahead and released a policy prescription for reducing carbon emissions this week. From the C.D. Howe Institute, it explains how Canada could tax carbon emissions and return the money to the emitting provinces to cut taxes, so even Alberta and Saskatchewan could retain most of their investment competitiveness while still penalizing emitters.

jim travers is frightened

I am fairly certain of a Tory victory in Vaughan, even though I myself have soem question about our candidate Julian Fantino. I am much less sure of a winter election. I suspect a winter election is not in the cards. If there is one, the grits should be very scared. Their fundraising numbers are pathetic and they would probably have to rent the same bus to get iffy agacross Canada. I think it is mor likely we will see grit cooperation with HM Government, even if it is not with much enthusiaism. I don't see an election before the fall of 2011. The grits can no longer block HM Government in the senate and they are broke. They will be sitting on their hands a lot and iffy will probably make more mtrips to harvard to keep in touch for his next job.

Federal Liberals have much more to worry about this weekend than the looming by-election loss of yet another supposedly “safe” seat. A sorry result in Vaughan may well trigger a winter campaign fought to Liberal disadvantage on Conservative terms.

Still hoping for the by-election best, Liberal are preparing for the worst. Unless loyalists shock organizers by flooding polling stations, former OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino will win in a walk, one widely expected to lead him straight into the Conservative cabinet.

Losing a riding Liberals held for 22 years — albeit by leaning heavily on Maurizio Bevilacqua’s personal popularity — would wave warning flags any time. Losing Vaughan now to Stephen Harper would be a jarring wake-up call for Michael Ignatieff

Sun Tv News Approved

I am very pleased to hear the news that Sun Tv News has been approved. I still wish my friend Kory Teneycke was in charge, but I can't have everything. They have already announced some great show hosts like Ezra , Brian Lilley and Charles Adler. I am very excited to have an alternative to the biased leftist piddle of the CBC and most other msm outlets. It should be a fun ride.



Groupe TVA inc., et Sun Media Corporation, associés dans une société en nom collectif devant être constituée, qui fera affaires sous le nom de Société en nom collectif Sun TV News
L’ensemble du Canada
Demande 2010-1188-2, reçue le 26 juillet 2010
Sun TV News – service de nouvelles nationales d’intérêt général concurrent
Le Conseil approuve la demande présentée par le Groupe TVA inc. en son nom et au nom de Sun Media Corporation, associés dans une société en nom collectif devant être constituée, qui fera affaires sous le nom de Société en nom collectif Sun TV News, en vue d’obtenir une licence de radiodiffusion afin d’exploiter Sun TV News, un service national d’émissions spécialisées de catégorie 2 de langue anglaise, qui sera assujetti aux conditions de licence normalisées et encouragement pour les services de nouvelles nationales d’intérêt général concurrents énoncés dans la politique réglementaire de radiodiffusion 2009-562-1.

Reseau Liberte Quebec

Some exciting new things at the Quebec Freedom Network. You can be an active particiapant and join us in our fight for freedom and fiscal responsibility in Qubec. You can set up or join a regional RLQ. We are also plannning another event in the spring in Montreal. Go to our website to see these exciting new changes.
We are still in the news. Things have actually gotten to the point in Quebec that Gerard Deltell can be on TLMEP.
So join us at the RLQ and make your voice heard!

Danny williams

I have not been a fan of danny williams. He has spent a lot of time bashing the federal party an I think he is a blow hard. I hope he has no federal ambitions. I will not miss him

But outside Newfoundland, Mr. Williams is better known for his over-the-top political stunts and rhetoric. In 2004, he removed all Canadian flags from public buildings to protest what he considered a broken campaign promise by Paul Martin relating to oil royalties. He ordered the flags back a year later after Mr. Martin (being Mr. Martin) served up a sweetheart deal that allowed Newfoundland to have its royalties and equalization, too (in the form of an up-front $2.6-billion dollar payout, no less).

In 2008, in a similar fit of pique over equalization, Mr. Williams told Newfoundland voters to reject the federal Tories through an “Anything But Conservative” campaign. (In one case, a would-be Conservative candidate claimed his father’s business would be threatened if he decided to run.) A year later, Mr. Williams tried to strong-arm the federal Liberals into opposing the Conservatives’ budget, claiming it would cost Newfoundland $1.6-billion in equalization payments over three years, and threatening that Liberal MPs would be committing “political suicide” if they voted in favour. (Thankfully, this shakedown fell flat: In one of his more decisive moments, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff retorted “I am not in the business of carrying Premier Williams’ water.”)

Blazing Cat Fur: JDL Chanukah Party To Support Blazingcatfur

A party to help my friend Arnie thrown by some of our Jewish friends. Please help Arnie against the forces of anti semitism, darkness and censorship.
Blazing Cat Fur: JDL Chanukah Party To Support Blazingcatfur

Apologies for the euro?

Daniel Hannan asks those who thought the euro was a good idea to admit reality. The euro is an utter failure. The UK is infinitely better off not being in the euro zone!

In a superb blog post, Peter Oborne says that he contacted the chief proponents of monetary union – Hezza, Brittan, Mandie, Kinnock, Kennedy – to ask whether their views had changed. None returned his call.
I’m not holding out for a retraction (although Danny Alexander deserves credit for being one of the few Lib Dems publicly to have admitted that he got it wrong). But it would be nice if the BBC stopped trotting these characters out as if they were disinterested experts, while presenting those of us who opposed the euro as Right-wing eccentrics. We don’t want an apology, those of us who got the call right: we just want to be listened to next time.

Apologies to Maclean's?

The Quebec elites and the mps in the federal parliament who voted to censure Macleans's are totally out of touch with the people of Quebec.

75% of Quebecers believe Quebec is a corrupt province and 62 % believe their local politicians are corrupt.
They all owe Quebec an apology .

Blaming W

Victor Davis Hansen writes about bo's Bush obsession. It has basically led to his own failures. Most of his foreign policy I'd Bush foreign policies and his domestic failures are Bush mistakes gone wild.

Barack Obama remains fixated by George W. Bush. For nearly two years, President Obama and his team have prefaced their explanations for the tough economy, tough finances and tough situation abroad with a "Bush did it" chorus. Apparently, they believed that most of our problems, here and abroad, either started with George W. Bush, or at least would not transcend him.
At first, it was an easy enough habit to fall into. Things were not in great shape in January 2009 when Obama took over. More importantly, Obama's started out with a nearly 70 percent approval rating. In contrast, Bush, like the punching bag Harry Truman, left office with an approval rating in the low 30s.
Obama's serial fixation with his former predecessor made little sense when he first took office -- and has now become a disastrous misreading of political realities.

Prof Manur on the US midterms

Prof Mansur on the crushing defeat suffered by bo and the dems. A defeat the clueless Bo and the dems don't seem to understand. They will get another chance to understand in 2012. 

The 2010 mid-term U.S. election was a fine illustration of a republican revolution done peacefully and, as an expression of “We, the People,” setting limits on the powers of government.


As a revolution, it went beyond repudiating U.S. President Barack Obama’s tax-and-spend policies aggressively pushed by his Democratic allies in Congress. It reached for the ideal of the American constitutional principle of checks and balances.

The failure of liberalism

An interesing ananlysis of bo's failure. It is the failure of big l liberalism.


This contrasts with the far broader support for the familiar form of liberalism forged from the 1930s to the 1990s. Democratic presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton focused largely on basic middle-class concerns — such as expanding economic opportunity, property ownership and growth.

Modern-day liberalism, however, is often ambivalent about expanding the economy — preferring a mix of redistribution with redirection along green lines. Its base of political shock troops, public-employee unions, appears only tangentially interested in the health of the overall economy.

In the short run, the diminishment of middle-of-the-road Democrats at the state and national level will probably only worsen these tendencies, leaving a rump party tied to the coastal regions, big cities and college towns. There, many voters are dependents of government, subsidized students or public employees, or wealthy creative people, college professors and business service providers.

Climate realism from Greg Weston at the CBC???

I must say I am usually not a Greg Weston fan, but even he can see the insanity of the chicken littles. The grit strategy on Kyoto was to sign a treaty and totally ignore it, except for spending 6 billion dollars to try and buy the votes of the climate gullible. To those who object to the Senate defeating this bill, why aren't you demanding an elected senate? Tory attempts at Senate reform have been stopped by the coalition of the left.

The bill was demanding what no government could reasonably deliver.

The so-called Climate Change Accountability Act, originally proposed by the New Democrats in 2006, would have committed the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40 per cent over the next 10 years.

On Tuesday, the Conservatives managed to pull off a surprise vote in the Senate that killed the bill on the spot.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended the move, saying the legislation was setting "irresponsible targets" that would entail "shutting down sections of the Canadian economy and throwing hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of people out of work."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper responds to a question in the Commons in Wednesday about the rejected climate change bill. (Adrian Wy ld/Canadian Press)
What exactly would cutting emissions by 40 per cent entail?

The latest figures from Environment Canada show the government could send the country back to using the horse and buggy and still not satisfy the greenhouse gas reduction targets in the climate change bill axed by the Senate.

The RLQ and jean Charest

I responded to the excellent editorial on Jean Charest in the NP. The RLQ message is being reinforced by a study from the Conference board of Canada. Eric Duhaime summarizes the quicksand that charest and his grits are sinking into. Maclean's must feel vindicated.

National Post · Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010

Re: Jean Charest: No One To Blame But Himself, editorial, Nov. 17.

As one of the co-founders of the Reseau Liberte-Quebec (RLQ), I totally agree with your editorial on Jean Charest. I just want to reiterate that the RLQ is not and will not become a political party. We are a forum for ideas and want to expand the debate in Quebec. We want the old separatists/federalist debate to be replaced by the more relevant left/ right debate. It is because of the consensus of our political and journalist classes in Quebec, that there is an artificial consensus of left-wing politics and an ongoing constitutional debate which goes nowhere. It's time for Quebecers to start having the same discussions about the economy and their society that happen everywhere else in the Western world. Jean Charest came to power talking about cutting the deficit, reducing taxes and decreasing the size of the state. He has totally lost his way.

Roy Eappen, Montreal.

Chris Schafer on Michael Coren

The Canadian Constitution is an amazing organization that fights for our freedom and liberty in the courts. The left gets money to fight for their causes from unions and unfortunately from government. The CCF gets it's money from private donors. I congratulate my friends Karen Selick and Chris Schafer for the excellent work on free speech and many other causes.
You can watch Chris on the Michael Coren Show this week here. I again urge you to
Donate to the CCF

grit volunteers?

 Apparently the grit grass roots( an oxymoron?)not only don't donate, they have to be given prizes to "volunteer".  I guess it goes along with the grits buying votes with taxpayers money. Good to see iffy is really motivating his grass roots after that fantastic fundraising bus tour. It was so successful the grits have hired professional fundraisers. 
 
Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are offering up big prizes – tickets to Ottawa Senators games and even a $150 gift certificate to Hy’s Steakhouse – to round up volunteers to help them identify the Grit vote in upcoming by-elections. 

But this odd pitch for help has some Liberals wondering where the Grit spirit has gone. Why do volunteers have to be cajoled? 

“It’s time to up the stakes," writes Jane Kennedy, an official in the Opposition Leader’s Office, in an email sent to the offices of Liberal MPs and staffers. “With less than two weeks until Election Day for the by-elections, we need your help." 

Climate Realism testimony

There was testimony in front of the house by some climate realists and the usual hysterics. Prof Lindzen of MIT gave a great talk, as did the CATO Institute's Pat Michaels.

Here is some of Prof Lindzen's testimony:

The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak –and commonly acknowledged as such.

…

Given that this has become a quasi-religious issue, it is hard to tell. However, my personal hope is that we will return to normative science, and try to understand how the climate actually behaves. Our present approach of dealing with climate as completely specified by a single number, globally averaged surface temperature anomaly, that is forced by another single number, atmospheric CO2levels, for example, clearly limits real understanding; so does the replacement of theory by model simulation. In point of fact, there has been progress along these lines and none of it demonstrates a prominent role for CO2. It has been possible to account for the cycle of ice ages simply with orbital variations (as was thought to be the case before global warming mania); tests of sensitivity independent of the assumption that warming is due to CO2(a circular assumption) show sensitivities lower than models show; the resolution of the early faint sun paradox which could not be resolved by greenhouse gases, is readily resolved by clouds acting as negative feedbacks. Read the whole thing at
WUWT.

You can watch the testimony of Prof Lindzen and Pat Michaels here

The Afghan Mission

I am pleased that the Afghan Mission will be extended and that the grits ( Bob Rae has said he doesn't think a vote is needed for this extension) are supporting that. I was at a CASC event in Toronto, where Bob Rae said that he would support this kind of extension in April. I congratulate Bob Rae (don't faint) for his support. I also congratulate Terry Glavin and my other friends at CASC, who did a lot to make sure this file was not forgotten.

NP on Jean Charest

The NP has an excellent editorial on Jean Charest and mentions the RLQ/Quebec Freedom Network. I must say I am shocked at the amount of attention mt friends and I have generated. The entire debate in Quebec has changed in the last month. Now I understand that ADQ leader Gerard Deltell will be on the French CBC's Tout Le Monde En Parlent. This is a show which is very hghly rated and has very lefty hosts. It shows the people of Quebec are open to these ideas. The unions have formed a coalition against us. It is as if Goliath formed a coaltion to attack David. I am in India for the next few weeks. Before I left, my friends and I met again to chart the future of the RLQ. There will be an announcement November 23, 2010. Let me say that it is a privilege to work with Joanne Marcotte, Eric Duhaime, Ian Senechal, Guillaume Leduc and Gerard Laliberte( among many others). I am honoured to say that they are my friends.
Jean Charest has pretty much failed to bring about the change that is needed in Quebec. In many ways he has been more hostile to Canada than even the PQ. At the same time the PQ is r\tearing itself into pieces. It is an interesting time in Quebec.





On the other hand, there is nothing inscribed in holy writ that says the Liberals must remain the primary federalist option on Quebec's provincial ballot. In early October, another public opinion survey found that a hypothetical centre-right party led by former PQ Minister Francois Legault would get 42% of the vote. Subsequently, the right-of-centre movement Reseau Liberte Quebec held a high-profile inaugural conference, and the ADQ has ramped up its rhetoric in the hopes of cashing in on public discontent.

Video excerpts from Mark Steyn at the Ezra Tribute Dinner

Me doing the Loyal Toast

Dr. Roy Gives the Toast to the Queen from roy eappen on Vimeo.


Excerts from Mark Steyn's Speech


A question from Vlad Tepes.


You should be able to be buy the DVD of the speech soon.

Chantal Hebert on Rae and iffy and the Torz base

All I can say is thanks iffy and bob. Maybe neither of you should be grits.


But it does seem that the two former leadership rivals are finding it easier to agree with each other — and in this instance with the government — than to secure a consensus within their caucus.

As a result, they have jointly managed the singular achievement of giving Harper the elbow room he needed to change tack on Afghanistan in a way that is bound to please both NATO and the Conservative party base while making the Liberals more vulnerable to Bloc Québécois and NDP attacks on both Afghanistan and parliamentary accountability in the next election.

Since he came to office almost five years ago Harper has twice outmanoeuvred the opposition and secured parliamentary approval for extensions to Canada’s combat mission in Kandahar against long odds.

This time, though, Ignatieff and Rae outmanoeuvred themselves.

Free Thinking Film Festival

 Congratulations to Fred and his team for a wonderful 3 days of films! The highlight was of course Mine Your Own Business and the Ezra/ ellie may debate. I also caught Katyn. Katyn made me despise communism even more than I do already. It was a deeply disturbing film.

I was unable to stay for several films I wanted to see including The White African.

Mine Your Own Business was great. I have met Phelim McAleer before and he was in fine form while answering questions after the film. He is actually less animated than his lovely wife, who was not at the festival. He pummeled the environmental movement in the film and in his answers.
He said they were deeply anti-people especially poor people.

Q&A with Phelim McAleer producer director from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.



The Ezra/ ellie may debate was fun. I think they both made interesting points, but Ezra won. I was seated among a group of green supporters. Some of the comments they made to each other were the crowd shouldn't be able to be so enthusiastic for ezra, someone should throw them out and of course I heard two of the ladies behind say that the pro Ezra audience members and Ezra should be silenced. I hope this doesn't reflect all of the greens, but sadly I think it might. I will post the video of the debate, when I can get it.

An earlier Ezra vs andrew nikiforuk on the Olisands.


Ezra Levant and Andrew Nikiforuk debate ethics of Alberta's oilsands from Trevor Howell on Vimeo.


More from Miss Marmelate and from Vlad Tepes.

Another grit non apology

Marlene jennings is a shameful excuse for an mp. She has made a non apology for her latest outrage. Why anyone votes for this rude woman, a lawyer, was even unsure of her own citizenship status. Stay classy marlene.


Mr. Speaker, during the course of question period, I allowed my emotions to take over the calm, studied aspect of my personality that I am usually able to exhibit. The Minister of National Defence, responding to a question, in his typical fashion was going down to the lowest common denominator … In the heat and the anger at listening to the Minister of National Defence make his comments, I called him a “slime”. I wish to unreservedly withdraw my remarks calling the minister a slime and offer him my sincere apology for having called him a slime. It was unparliamentary. I apologize unreservedly.

Iffy: the gift that keeps giving

Astounding? Apparently running a Tory candidate ,who happens to me Filipino, is unfair??

Does anyone know what Michael Ignatieff is talking about?
The Liberal leader was in Winnipeg on the weekend campaigning for Winnipeg North candidate Kevin Lamoureux when he accused the Conservatives of fighting dirty by running a Filipino candidate in the riding.
Voters, he said, deserved "a straight-up fight" and not "a bunch of games." He was apparently referring to speculation that the Tories were trying to weaken Mr. Lamoureux's support by running Filipino Julie Javier in a riding that traditionally supports the New Democratic Party and which has a high number of Filipino residents.
Once again, does anyone know what Mr. Ignatieff is talking about? Is he really suggesting that the Conservatives should have fielded a non-Filipino candidate to make it a fair fight for the Liberal contender? Is it his view that Ms. Javier is a fake candidate who has cynically offered her name to spoil Liberal ambitions and ensure an NDP victory?
Mr. Ignatieff's comments were an insult to voters in general and Filipinos in particular. To be fair, it doesn't look like he anticipated the question, but the leader of an institution like the Liberal Party of Canada should be smarter on his feet. In the big leagues, you're only allowed so many stupid mistakes.

Quebec's lost kids

Unfortunately this applies to far more boys than girls. Why don't we have more technical programs? We should allow school voucher programs so kids and programs can match up. Massive state spending has done little to make this situation better. Unfortunately much of the problem is social. Lack of fathers and divorce contribute massively to these problems.
An interesting article by Peggy Curran. Mark Steyn recently said that perhaps this trend to hypereducation at enormous cost is starting to show very poor returns on investment. In today's society without a high school degree one can do very little.

The lucky ones will find steady work on a loading dock, haul garbage, scrub floors, shovel snow. It won't be glamorous, creative, or fulfilling, but at least it pays. Others will drift from flipping burgers to stripping hotel beds to manning the cash at the dollar store, making do with whatever work falls their way, for as long as it lasts, or until they eventually wend their way back to a classroom.

Over their lifetimes, each of Quebec's lost boys and girls can expect to earn $440,000 less than the kids in their class who stayed long enough to collect a high-school diploma.

In hard times, these dropouts are more likely than high-school graduates to slip across the poverty line, surrendering even those low-level jobs to someone a rung up the educational totem pole.

More of them than the rest of us will spend time in jail, collect welfare, abuse alcohol and drugs, suffer from clinical depression, even get divorced.

High-school dropouts are less likely to travel to distant lands. They're also less prone to show openness toward the immigrants in their midst, whose children will complete their schooling.

Research also shows Quebecers who drop out of high school are less likely to vote in city, provincial or federal elections, do volunteer work, donate to charities or give blood.

Go Agop!!!!!

                                            Some of the other Tory candidates including Rodolphe Husny

                                           Tory  Candidates and several municipal councillors who were there!

 It was great to be at an event for Dollard Pierrefonds Tory Candidate Agop Evereklian. HM Minister of National Defense Peter Mackay was the guest of honour. It was a great evening with many municipal councillors in attendance.  Peter Mackay gave a rousing speech in praise of Agop.  Agop will be a great MP! The event was very well attended.
 Agop really has a great team andI think really has a good chance of winning.

A Royal Wedding in 2011

Congratulations to HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton on the occasion of their engagement. I am glad that they have had a chance to get to know each other and that Miss Middleton has had a chance to learn about her future role. God Bless them both. God Save the Queen!
HRH was recently in Afghanistan to honour HM Troops.





Prince William is to marry Kate Middleton next year, Clarence House has said.

William, second in line to the throne, will marry in London next spring or summer and live in north Wales where he is serving with the RAF.

The couple, who are both 28, became engaged in October during a private holiday in Kenya.

They began dating eight years ago while studying at St Andrews University in Fife, where they shared a house.

The royal engagement was announced in a brief statement released by Clarence House.

It said: "The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton.

NBC and olbermann at war?

It's fun watching the left fight among themselves. Wonder how long olbermann will stay at msnbc?


MSNBC’s president vowed to fire Keith Olbermann after he threatened to take his case to other networks. Howard Kurtz on the civil war that has NBC brass—and his own staff—fuming.

Keith Olbermann was having dinner with his manager at an Upper East Side restaurant, chewing over their battle to lift his suspension at MSNBC, when Phil Griffin called.

Michael Price stepped out of the Atlantic Grill to talk to MSNBC’s president, leaving his client with a platter of 18 oysters. It was Sunday, Nov. 7, and Price informed Griffin that if they couldn’t resolve their differences quickly, Olbermann would take his complaints public by accepting invitations from Good Morning America, David Letterman, and Larry King.

God Bless Aung San Suu Kyi

I am extremely happy that the Lady is free. Now it is time for the people of Burma to be free.

Good for Keith Martin

I agree with Keith Martin, the Canada Health Act is outdated and I think could be argued to be unconstitutional. I am glad Keith Martin will continue to work on these issues after he has retired and his seat has gone Tory.


A shibboleth is defined as “a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.” I know this to be true, because I had to look up the word when reading a statement from Liberal MP

Keith Martin about the Canadian health-care system.

“We cannot continue to wrap ourselves in the Canada Health Act, hold on to shibboleths and demonize those who are trying to modernize our obsolete health-care system,” he wrote.

It’s rather a bracing statement: that the Canada Health Act — the thing that so many people identify as one of our defining characteristics — is an outdated belief with no basis in reality. Was a federal legislator putting it that starkly? Was an MP — a physician, even — calling bunkum on the cherished principles of universality and accessibility? And wouldn’t this make things a little awkward at Liberal caucus meetings?

Salim Mansur on anti semitism and HM PM Harper

Prof Mansur praises HM PM Harper on his stand with Israel and against anti Semitism. I concur!


Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s speech this week at a global conference in Ottawa on combating anti-Semitism was eloquent, heartfelt, deeply moving, and courageous when courage is sorely needed of our leaders in these scoundrel times.

This is the week of Remembrance, and Harper rightly reminded us the oldest enduring bigotry against Jews still thrives in our midst when Israel is “the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack.” And this means “we are morally obligated to take a stand.”

As I read Harper’s words I recalled the writings of Pierre Van Paassen (1895-1968), a Dutch-Canadian who served with the Canadian infantry in France during the First World War.

He took up journalism after the war with the Toronto Globe, and during the 1930s reported from Europe as an international correspondent for the Toronto Daily Star.

Van Paassen watched the rise of Hitler in Germany, reported how Stalin turned Russia into a gulag, and witnessed the chilling gangsterism of fascists and Bolsheviks across Europe. He spoke to the leaders of Britain and France, and wrote of their spinelessness in the face of the darkness once more engulfing the continent.

Cool It

I saw Cool It at the RIDM, a documentary film festival in Montreal. The Filmmaker Ondi Timmoner was at the screening. Here is an interview with her.
The movie did denounce the goreacle's hyperexxageration, but Lomoborg does accept the ipcc numbers, which many of us reject. It is a much sunnier movie and it proposes some solutions to a problem, I don't think really exists. He proposes how to spend $250 billion a year in Europe to find alternate fuels, dop some geoengineering and solve all the problems of poverty. He had many good cameso by people like Prof Lindzen. I enjoyed the movie, but Lomborg certainly does not go far enough. There was a debate after the filem with a Montreal member of the discredtied ipcc and Timoner. I was not really able to stay for that. It was interesting that the guy representing the warmists also felt that the goreacle and the like had done a lot of harm to their cause by their hysteria. It was particular horrifying to see how the warmists have brainwashed children to be frightened and hopeless. I would recoomend this movie.
in Reason

Bolsheviki

I give financial support to 3 stage companies. One of them, Infinitheatre is an experimental group in Montreal. I do this to encourage and nourish English theater in Montreal. I often find the plays produced at this theater leftist, but they usually make me think about things.
Yesterday I saw a David Fennario Play called Bosheviki. David Fennario is about as left wing as you can get. He is an avowed marxist. He is a pretty good playwright.
This play was about the futility of war. I don't think it was particularly disrespectful to our soldiers and veterans, but it did make me gnash my teeth. It is the story of Rosie, a WW1 veteran who comes back from the war a bolsheviki. It did engender some discussion with the friend I went with, so I suppose it served some purpose. The audience gave it and David fennario, a standing ovation. I did not.
This is Fennnario on the subject. A lot of this dialogue is in the play.

Free Speech

Karen Selick of the CCF has already written that the Canadian Supreme Court can strike down the despicable section 13.1 of the hrcs. It is the section used to stop free speech. Free speech means nothing if you don't allow odious speech. This Gazette editorial agrees. let's hope our supremes get it right this time. ( Please donate to the CCF, they do excellent work to defend our freedoms)

Top court gets second chance to do right thing on free speech

Saskatchewan appeal could allow justices to rein in power of rights bodies

By KAREN SELICK, Troy Media November 12, 2010

The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to reconsider 20-year-old jurisprudence that limits free speech. The case under appeal is The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission vs. William Whatcott.

Back in 2001 and 2002, Whatcott, a social conservative activist, distributed flyers in Regina and Saskatoon bearing headings such as "Keep Homosexuality out of Saskatoon's Public Schools" and "Sodomites in our Public Schools."

Aung San Suu Kyi is Free!

I am very happy that the Lady is free. Unfortunately her people are still in chains. The murderous generals have stolen the election and stopped the rightful leader of Burma from taking power.

Tory Fundraising Juggernaut crushes grits

I recently posted the dismal numbers for iffy and the grits for the last quarter. The iffy tour if anything resulted in fewer donors and less money. Now they are going to hire fundraisers to try and catch up to the Tory fundraising juggernaut. Money they don't really have. Professional fundraisers are usually pretty expensive. It will interesting to see if they can catch up , since they are admitting their own pathetic efforts have utterly failed. It's also interesting that the globe has adopted my phrase Tory Fundraising Juggernaut.


The federal Liberal party has hired a team of professional fundraisers in a bid to catch up with the Conservative money machine.

The team has its work cut out for it.

So far this year, the Tories have raised almost three times as much money as the Liberals – $12.1-million versus $4.4-million, according to quarterly financial statements filed with Elections Canada.

Free Trade with India

I think this is excellent news. Canada and India are discussing free trade. I personally think the Anglosphere and the whole Commonwealth should be one huge free trade zone. I think Canada should drop all trade barriers against all poorer Commonwealth countries unilaterally.
Listen to HM PM Harper here.



In Seoul, South Korea, for the G20 summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that negotiations for an agreement that could be worth as much as $6 billion a year to both countries has begun.


"Our government is committed to opening new markets for Canadian goods and services," Harper said in a statement. "Today, I am pleased to announce that we have taken another step on that path by launching trade negotiations with India."


The two countries have flirted with a trade agreement for years, before stepping up efforts of late. No timetable has been set for negotiations, however.


In recent months, Canada has been active in trade negotiations, as it seeks to diversify away from the increasingly wobbly U.S. economy. Negotiators are in the midst of a trade pact with the European Union that they hope to complete next year.

Aung San Suu Kyi soon to be free!!!

One of my personal heroes is Aung San Suu Kyi. The Lady has fought against the brutal junata that rules Burma. Recently, sham elections were held in Burma. The Lady was not allowed to run. She would have won in a landslide. The murderous general of Burma are afraid of the Lady. She is an honourary Canadian citizen. The charges against her were ridiculous. She apparently will soon be free. I pray fro the day when this brave woman will lead her people to freedom! We in the West must continue to support her and her people's struggle against tyranny.


YANGON - Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is on the verge of being freed from house arrest, officials in the military-ruled country said Friday as hundreds of her supporters gathered in anticipation.

Security was stepped up in Yangon, where Suu Kyi remained confined to her crumbling lakeside mansion, with police vehicles patrolling the city.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, locked up for most of the past two decades, is still seen as the biggest threat to the junta, but her freedom appears to be a price it is willing to pay to deflect criticism of recent elections.

"The authorities will release her. It is certain," a government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Lawyers for the 65-year-old dissident say her current term of house arrest started with her imprisonment on May 14 last year and so is due to end on Saturday.

CCPS Immigration Forum

                                                    Julie Taub      Naresh                          Salim

                                               James Bissett

I attended the Canadian Center for Policy Studies immigration conference. It had a great roster of speakers. It was a frank discussion of our failed immigration and refugee policy with some solutions suggested. We neeed to have these discussions without the usual ranting of interest groups who use the silencer word racism. Most speakers called for reductions in immigration numbers with Salim calling for an outright temporary moratorium

You can watch the Conference on CPAC today.

Thursday, November 11 at 1 AM ET / Wednesday November 10 at 10 PM PT
Thursday, November 11 at 6:30 AM ET / 3:30 AM PT
Friday, November 12 at 1:15 PM ET / 10:15 AM PT
On October 28th, 2010, in Ottawa the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies organized a symposium entitled: "Canada's Immigration & Refugee System: What's wrong and how to fix it." Julie Taub, an Immigration lawyer, discussed Canada's immigration and refugee industry.

Chris Alexander

 Chris was on the Agenda this week.



He was also on the Tommy Schnurmacher Show on CJAD discussing Afghanistan. Listen here:


He has written a reasoned piece on the future of Afghanistan in the November issue of Policy Options.
Canada needs people like Chris in parliament. We must work to elect Chris and defeat the grit blaggard mark holland!


AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN: A STRATEGY FOR PEACE
Chris Alexander
Since the state of Pakistan was established in 1947 — and in a larger sense since Ranjit Singh’s Sikh kingdom and later the British Raj began encroaching on the old Durrani empire of Afghanistan in the early nineteenth century — Afghanistan and Pakistan have had a troubled relationship. By denying that the Durand Line is an international border, Afghanistan lodged an implicit claim against Pakistan’s territorial integrity that has stood since 1949. By backing Islamist militia proxies in Afghanistan since the early 1970s — down to and including today’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — Pakistan has embraced a policy of interference. Peace will require a framework for ending both policies. It will require international supervision and monitoring, best led by the UN, as well as a judicial component. Fortunately, the region’s economic stake in Afghan stability is now broad and deep enough to provide useful incentives.

Eric Duhaime on RDI and The RLQ

My friend Eric Duhaime goes into the belly of the beast ( SRC/CBC) to discuss if the Quebec media has a left wing bias( of course it does).
You can listen here.

Things are changing in Quebec. even the Gazette is saying nice things about the ADQ.

Maxime mocked the new union coalition against the RLQ.

Three editorials in La Presse about the right on Quebec .
Finally a scorching piecel about a conservative gone bad Jean Charest.

Here are the facts on Charest’s administration, from the time it arrived in office to today:

• The size of the provincial government in the economy went from 27% to 31.4%.

• The spending per capita went from $9,036 to $11,627.

• The proportion of investments that are public went from 23.1% to 34.9%.

• The number of bureaucrats went from 95.5 per 1,000 habitants to 97.3.

• The provincial net debt per capita went from $14,270 to $16,482, while it decreased on average in Canada to below $8,000.

• Provincial subsidies per capita went from $637 to $741, while it declined in the rest of the country to below $200.

And let’s not talk about the fact that the waiting lists in Quebec hospitals are now worse than they were seven years ago and the school dropout rate has also increased.



My friends and I have really stirred the pot in Quebec!

Tarek Fatah on the Agenda

Tarek is on the Agenda with Steve Paikin talking about his new book The Jew is not My Enemy.

Remembrance Day

Let us honour all of HM Forces and the Forces of our allies who have died and fought to keep us free. Let us always remember to honour our veterans!

Classic Orwell

Orwell's warnings are still very timely today in a land where many pigs are more equal than others.


George Orwell's 1984. Read the book here. Watch the movie :



George Orwell's Animal Farm. Read the book. Watch the cartoon.

Private Health Care

Another excellent article from my friend Karen Selick of the CCF. Profit is not a bad thing! Choice is also a good thing.

It hardly seems possible that there can be that much profit built into an eight-cent pencil, but that’s exactly the point: “Profitable” is not a synonym for “expensive.” Consumers can buy expensive shoes or cheap shoes, luxury cars or economy cars, filet mignon or hamburger. Whatever the commodity, the free market offers goods produced at a profit, by privately owned enterprises, in a staggering range of varieties and prices.

People don’t generally accuse supermarkets of being evil for profiting from people’s hunger, or shoe stores for profiting from people’s barefootedness. Yet, Canadians have become so accustomed to thinking that health care must be provided by government that moral panic ensues the moment anyone suggests it could be provided by private, profit-making enterprises. “Nobody should profit on the backs of the sick,” opponents cry.

The CCF is doing wonderful work. Please donate to them!

Larry Smith Tory candidate?

                                     Larry Smith( standing)
Larry Smith has stepped down as President of the Montreal Alouettes. He has really helped turn the team around.  I really do hope he will be the Tory candidate in Lac St Louis! He  and Agop Evereklian in Pierrefonds Dollard can hopefully help the Tories break our drought in the greater Montreal area.


MONTREAL - The federal Conservatives are courting football executive Larry Smith to run in a Montreal riding in the hope of snapping a long cycle of futility in Canada's second-biggest city.

A Tory riding association on the island says it has approached Smith, a former CFL commissioner and outgoing Montreal Alouettes president, about running for the party.

An executive with the Tories' Lac-Saint-Louis riding association says the interest appears mutual: the association has been informed that Smith has expressed an interest in running.

He has an impressive bio including lots of executive experience:

:
2010 - Now in his 12th season as the leader of the Alouettes, Smith is one of the most recognized sports figures in Quebec. Montreal fans first got to know him as a star running back for the Als from 1972 through 1980, and then as the team’s President and CEO from 1997 to 2001 and from 2004 through today.
His first term as the president of Alouettes followed five years as commissioner of the Canadian Football League. He has worked tirelessly for professional and amateur football over the last 30 years, playing a key role in reviving the tradition and glory of football in Montreal and Quebec as a whole.

As a player, he was part of two Grey Cup championship teams, 1974 and ’77. The Alouettes’ first-round selection in the 1972 Canadian college draft, he played 140 consecutive regular-season games, along with 13 playoff and five Grey Cup games. He is still to this day the only player ever picked by the Alouettes with the first-overall selection in the CFL Canadian Draft.

He has held several executive positions with major firms since graduating from Bishop’s University, including with John Labatt Ltd. (Ogilvie Mills Ltd).

He has received numerous honours throughout his business career: He was named the 1994 American Marketing Association-Toronto chapter Marketer of the Year (consumer products); Sports Personality of the Year at the 1998 Quebec Sports Gala; Marketer of the Year in 1999 by the International Association of Professional Communicators (Montreal); received the Accomplishment Award at the 2000 Marketing Personality Gala; the Equinoxe-Homage Award from the Société des relationnistes du Québec in 2002; the Integrated Marketing (Large Company) Award from the Association Marketing de Montreal in 2003; and the McGill Management Achievement Award in 2009. In 2010, he was named to l’Ordre national du Québec with the title of Chevalier du Québec.

In 2001, he received the Commissioner’s Award for his outstanding service and dedication in preserving and promoting the CFL. This award came during 2001 Grey Cup Week in Montreal, which was a huge success under his direction.

Montreal again hosted the Grey Cup in 2008, for which he served as Committee Co-Chairman. The event was a huge success with over 66,000 fans packing Olympic Stadium to the rafters.

He serves on a number of civic charitable boards and has served as president of the Bishop’s Alumni Association and is Chairman of the Canada Games Council board of directors. In 2009, he was named to the Canadian Olympic Committee.

He lives in Hudson, QC, with his wife Leesa. They have three children, Wes, Ashley, and Brad, who was a standout receiver at Queen’s University and was drafted by the Toronto Argonauts in 2007, as well as two young grandchildren, Drew and Hunter.

Lord Black on Strictly Right

My friends over at Strictly Right have an interview with Lord Black as their latest segment. Another coup after their recent triumphant tour with Mark Steyn and their interview with him.
Listen here for Lord Black.

The Petit Family verdict

The jurors were utterly horrified by the evil they saw.



Dr Petit speaks

American Conservatism

Brit Hume is doing a series on American conservatism. Here is the first in the series.

iffy waffles

David Frum on the waffles' waffling. Iffy can't even get a speech against anti Semitism right.
This is nothing new. Too bad iffy doesn't read Cotler much.


But think about Ignatieff’s words as a matter of moral principle. If Ignatieff were attending a conference on violence against women, would he dare suggest that there might be less such violence if women nagged their husbands less? Of course not. That would be outrageous. Yet that is what he had to say here.

Forced even-handedness suffused the speech.

Ignatieff talked movingly of visiting the firebombed Talmud Torah dayschool in Montreal in 2006. Fine. Good. He then immediately mentioned that he had also visited a mosque that had its windows broken. Also fine, we can all agree it’s wrong to vandalize mosques too. OK. But why mention the one immediately after the other? What relationship did these two events have to each other?

Would Ignatieff follow a description of an attack on a synagogue with a condemnation of crime by motorcycle gangs? A lament for bullied gay teens? That would be a clanging non-sequitur, another topic for another comment. Yet in the mind of Ignatieff’s team, anti-Semitism apparently cannot be condemned without immediately and equally condemning anti-Muslim prejudice.

That’s an interesting reflex, isn’t it? It suggests that someone is afraid of overdoing the anti-Semitism thing, somebody wants to balance condemnations of anti-Semitism lest anti-Semitism get more than its fair share of attention.

I may be very wrong about this, but to the ears of a former speechwriter, Ignatieff’s speech sounded very like it had been worked on by at least two authors. One author wished to sound a strong message of support to the Jewish community. The other author wanted to pull back.

More bad news for the chicken littles

the goreacles Chicago carbon exchange collapses. msm forgets to mention it.


Al Gore’s much ballyhooed Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has recently announced that it will no longer be engaging in carbon trading, an activity that was the sole purpose that it was created. This is an utter failure of purpose in global warming hysteria yet the Old Media is almost completely silent on this colossal failure.

HM PM Harper Makes me Proud!

HM PM Harper defends a stalwart ally , Israel. Thank you Prime Minister



Prime Minister Stephen Harper today made the following remarks at the Ottawa Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism:

“Members of the Steering Committee, fellow parliamentarians, Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by saying how delighted I am to see so many of you from around the world, gathered here in Ottawa for the second annual conference of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism.

“It is a sign, not only of your commitment to our common cause, but also of the momentum established at the London Conference last year. It is, therefore, a great sign of hope.

“History teaches us that anti-Semitism is a tenacious and particularly dangerous form of hatred. And recent events are demonstrating that this hatred is now in resurgence throughout the world. That is why the work of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism has never been so important or timely as it is now.

“On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I commend you and support you in the great and important work that you are doing.

“I would like to thank Minister Jason Kenney, for inviting the ICCA to Ottawa, and for his outstanding record of leadership in combating anti-Semitism.

“I would like also to thank my introducer and friend, Scott Reid, Chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, and Mario Silva, Vice Chair, for organizing this conference.

“And I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Parliament of Canada here today, including Professor Irwin Cotler, for their dedication to your mission.

“Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, two weeks ago I visited Ukraine for the first time.

“In Kiev I laid a wreath at Babi Yar, the site of one of the numerous atrocities of the Holocaust. I was left there with much the same impression as I had in Auschwitz in 2008 — that such horrors defy all comprehension.

“At the killing grounds of Babyn Yar, I knew I was standing in a place where evil — evil at its most cruel, obscene, and grotesque — had been unleashed. But while evil of this magnitude may be unfathomable, it is nonetheless a fact.

“It is a fact of history. And it is a fact of our nature — that humans can choose to be inhuman. This is the paradox of freedom. That awesome power, that grave responsibility — to choose between good and evil.

“Let us not forget that even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust, men were free to choose good. And some did. That is the eternal witness of the Righteous Among the Nations. And let us not forget that even now, there are those who would choose evil and would launch another Holocaust, if left unchecked. That is the challenge before us today.

“The horror of the Holocaust is unique, but it is just one chapter in the long and unbroken history of anti-Semitism. Yet, in contemporary debates that influence the fate of the Jewish homeland, unfortunately, there are those who reject the language of good and evil. They say that the situation is not black and white, that we mustn’t choose sides.

“In response to this resurgence of moral ambivalence on these issues, we must speak clearly. Remembering the Holocaust is not merely an act of historical recognition.

“It must also be an understanding and an undertaking. An understanding that the same threats exist today. And an undertaking of a solemn responsibility to fight those threats.

“Jews today in many parts of the world and many different settings are increasingly subjected to vandalism, threats, slurs, and just plain, old-fashioned lies.

“Let me draw your attention to some particularly disturbing trends. Anti-Semitism has gained a place at our universities, where at times it is not the mob who are removed, but the Jewish students under attack. And, under the shadow of a hateful ideology with global ambitions, one which targets the Jewish homeland as a scapegoat, Jews are savagely attacked around the world, such as, most appallingly, in Mumbai in 2008.

“One ruthless champion of that ideology brazenly threatens to ‘wipe Israel off the map,’ and time and again flouts the obligations that his country has taken under international treaties. I could go on, but I know that you will agree on one point: that this is all too familiar.

“We have seen all this before. And we have no excuse to be complacent. In fact we have a duty to take action. And for all of us, that starts at home.

“In Canada, we have taken a number of steps to assess and combat anti-Semitism in our own country. You will no doubt hear from my Canadian colleagues about the measures we have taken to date.

“I will mention for the time being that, for the first time, we are dealing with Canada’s own record of officially sanctioned anti-Semitism. We have created a fund for education about our country’s deliberate rejection of Jewish refugees before and during the Second World War.

“But of course we must also combat anti-Semitism beyond our borders, an evolving, global phenomenon. And we must recognize, that while its substance is as crude as ever, its method is now more sophisticated.

“Harnessing disparate anti-Semitic, anti-American and anti-Western ideologies, it targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so.

“We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is. Of course, like any country, Israel may be subjected to fair criticism. And like any free country, Israel subjects itself to such criticism — healthy, necessary, democratic debate. But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack — is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand. Demonization, double standards, delegitimization, the three D’s, it is the responsibility of us all to stand up to them.

“And I know, by the way, because I have the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the United Nations, or any other international forum, the easy thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israeli rhetoric, to pretend it is just being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of ‘honest broker.’ There are, after all, a lot more votes, a lot more, in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But, as long as I am Prime Minister, whether it is at the UN or the Francophonie or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost. And friends, I say this not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well if we listen to it, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are a threat to all of us.

“Earlier I noted the paradox of freedom. It is freedom that makes us human. Whether it leads to heroism or depravity depends on how we use it.

“As the spectre of anti-Semitism spreads, our responsibility becomes increasingly clear. We are citizens of free countries. We have the right, and therefore the obligation, to speak out and to act. We are free citizens, but also the elected representatives of free peoples. We have a solemn duty to defend the vulnerable, to challenge the aggressor, to protect and promote human rights, human dignity, at home and abroad. None of us really knows whether we would choose to do good, in the extreme circumstances of the Righteous. But we do know there are those today who would choose to do evil, if they are so permitted. Thus, we must use our freedom now, and confront them and their anti-Semitism at every turn.

“That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the purpose of our intervention today: our shared determination to confront this terrible hatred. The work we have undertaken, in our own countries and in cooperation with one another, is a sign of hope.

“Our work together is a sign of hope, just as the existence and persistence of the Jewish homeland is a sign of hope. And it is here that history serves not to warn but to inspire.

“As I said on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, Israel appeared as a light, in a world emerging from deep darkness. Against all odds, that light has not been extinguished. It burns bright, upheld by the universal principles of all civilized nations — freedom, democracy and justice.

“By working together more closely in the family of civilized nations, we affirm and strengthen those principles. And we declare our faith in humanity’s future in the power of good over evil.

“Thank you for all you are doing to spread that faith. And thank you for your kind attention.

“Thank you very much.”